Thoughts

Well I haven't had much time lately to do much physical work on my project (because of final assignments and exams), but I've certainly been thinking about it a lot in between everything else.

I've been thinking about everything I do in relation to this project, and the most interesting connection that I've come across so far, came about while I was writing an essay on the male gaze in cinema and literature. In thinking about all the ways that women are objectified/aestheticized on screen and in words, I noticed that I'm doing the very same thing with my photographs of trees. I have been doing some photo editing, fragmenting trees into their various parts, leaves, bark, roots, branches... and giving them polished and pristine appearances (sort of a magical progression between light effects and colours) and I noticed that this is exactly what filmmakers and writers are doing to dehumanize women and transform them into fetish objects. In the book Lolita, if you've read it, a young girl's anatomy is fragmented by the author which then causes the reader to inadvertently sympathize with the pedophile who seduces her. She becomes reduced to her various body parts; similar to Hitchcock’s depiction of women, and similar to my photo editing of images of trees.

In a way I felt like I was immorally ripping my trees into pieces just as filmmakers and writers often do with their female characters. It’s strange though in a way to worry about objectifying a tree. A tree seems already to be like something not worthy of moral consideration (in this way anyways). But it felt wrong to me. I had been thinking of trying to represent my thoughts on trees in a truthful way through a visual essay accompanied by my own voice with musical undertones… in a sense getting closer to the spirituality that I see in trees. After thinking about the project in reference to depictions of women in literature and film though, I feel like I’m betraying that whole idea.

I’m thinking now about getting to the bottom of this issue and thinking some more about what exactly I am trying to do by beautifying my images of trees (giving them more than what’s already there, and fragmenting them into abstracted images of the whole). I am really going to consider gender and representation and how this can be applied to something which is completely divorced from the moral human side of things. I am talking about nature, about a plant, and I think it’s really interesting that I am feeling concerned about moral representation. I’m going to do some more reading on gender identification (Freud, Laura Mulvey), and see if maybe I can critique the objectification of women by objectifying a tree. (Sounds like a nifty idea, but I’m going to keep on working through it.)

For now (the next two weeks or so) before I go home for the Christmas Holidays, I’m going to continue with my music-making and photo editing. The photo work has been quite painstaking (I’m making lots and lots of copies of iterations of the same picture with minute changes of colour and light, and I plan on joining them in an imovie montage). The more I work, the more I think, and even though my idea is not solidified at this point, I think I’ve finally figured out my working method… and that is to plod along and let the ideas take shape as I work creatively.

Things are going well, and sorry for the long and unfocused blog, but it really helps me to do it. (Any advice or ideas that you have to offer, I would love to hear)

Thank you.

I'm thinking now about working around a theme of nature, and trees in particular... and the different forms, textures, and light effects that I can play with with photographs of trees. Combing through my photo collection, I noticed that trees make up a large portion of my subject matter and in a search to find something personal to build my art around it seems that trees are an obvious choice. How much more personal can you get than having a tree perminantly imprinted on your skin in ink?

I am still developing my idea, but am throwing myself into it without overthinking to see what comes of my creations. I have been photo-editing and working on a rather abstract piano piece with lots of midi effects on the piano sound distorting and creating a thick texture.

Change of Heart

I have decided to leave my old idea behind due to the fact that it was not engaging me as an artist, and because I had chosen the idea for the wrong reasons. I really want to be working on something that I care about, and for that reason I am switching over to something which I feel will interest me more, and in the end turn out a much more interesting product.

At this point I am still attempting to simplify my new idea and to outline it in a practical way.

Tools for new Project:
-Photoshop
-Cubase SX
-Reason
-Tassman Synth
-Acoustic instruments
Preliminary Concept: (Still under construction)
-I have been thinking about the divide which exists between computer music (including synthetic sounds) and organic music (consisting of pure audio recording) and the ways that these two realms are often pitted against one another. In my own music this generally is a choice that I feel I have to make. I need to ask myself, will I be writing computer generated music? or will I be writing un-aided acoustic music?

What I would like to comment upon though, is that maybe these two areas should not be thought of as opposites or enemies and that they do in fact, work exceptionally well together. People are often of one philosophy or the other, but I would like to sit directly in the middle and show how each of these areas can work together.

At the moment I am thinking of doing a slide show of still photography that is accompanied by a musical track and I would like to incorporate an element of abstraction through photo-editing and music processing to bend something acoustic into something more synthetic and less musical. I would like to develop a focused theme however, and to create a solid and unified work.

The idea that I am working with at the moment involves a progression towards abstraction and a looping back, towards simplified acoustic music, and I am considering using my photos to flow from themes of nature, towards human life and human production and industry, and then moving to abstraction of form and then gradually back to nature. With the music I am thinking of moving from something musical and acoustic to something synthetically produced and then towards abstract sound.

Inspiration Stills:



Thinking: Things that are jumping around in my head right now include... how am I going to make this personal/something that I care about? How am I going to incorporate photography (something I love)? Subjects I enjoy: Nature, travel, children, faces, familiarity... What do I care about musically? What kinds of music do I enjoy making?... my instrument is: my computer, piano, guitar, voice, flute, whistles, uke, thumb piano???

Im still attempting to calm my body and slow my brain so that I can bring it together and figure myself out a little bit so that I can start producing.....

Mix

Well I've put together a little preliminary mix of this airplane song and I'll bring it into class and hopefully I'll get some suggestions of ways to change/improve it.

It's been slow going with this one, but I think from here I'll be able to fly... now that I'm comfortable again with the tools I have and now that I'm starting to feel creative again.

The day I spent yesterday at my practicum at Artech Studios was an important one I think for my portfolio project. We're working on putting sound and music to an interactive DVD for a Tropical Monopoly game, and yesterday was my first experience in writing music where I was completely out of my element. I was asked to sit and write music that sounded tropical, something that might be played for a menu screen on the DVD. I was plunked down in front of Reason, which I've never used before my time at Artech and had to produce something musical. In the beginning it was very difficult, my musical ideas generally had nothing tropical or beach-like about them, but what I was able to do was to take a melody that was my own style of music and then expand upon that until it turned into something suitable for a menu screen in Tropical Monopoly. It certainly was a first attempt at working like this and I still have much developing to do, but I think this has been a very good first step towards what I hope to accomplish with my portfolio. I really would like to expand myself as a musician and sound designer and I think yesterday I was able to broaden myself just a little bit by working towards creating something that is completely foreign to my creative ability. Hopefully now I will be able to continue this broadening with my piece of music that I am creating in the format of music for a video art piece. It's saturday afternoon and I am locking myself in my studio so that I can make some real progress on this piece that has had me stuck in a rut.

1st project is slowly coming along... running into some technical hurdles, which I think will make things easier down the road.

Sept 30:

-Refined Organ sound, wrote and recorded organ part.

-Thinking about adding ambient track, melody instrument, maybe vocal hums, propeller audio/plane engine.

-Still struggling with Tassman. Only one preset is saving properly, and I can’t get two Tassman instruments to run independently in Cubase.

-Found cool airplane sound… would like to manipulate it, think pitch shift, EQ, effects.

-Used Wavelab to time stretch

-Might think about asking Mike from Artech if I could borrow a long engine sound.

-Organ sound is very quiet… need to figure out how to boost signal.

-Considering a layering of engine sounds over three tracks; a weaving between short tracks.

-Thinking also about adding very breathy vocal track with reverb.

-It’s sounding too cheery at the moment… thinking about adding some more minor chords if I can to create different moods throughout the piece.

Question:

-How can I make my midi sounds louder? I am using a midi piano and a tassman synth and they are extremely quiet compared with my audio sounds.

Visual Inspiration for
Airplane Video Art Song

This was taken out the window on a small flight
going from Vancouver to Sandspit B.C. I also have some short
video clilps which I will hopefully post once I
figure out how to get a website going.

Where I'm at on Sept 27 2006

I have solidified my ideas to an extent through writing out a detailed proposal and I've also been discussing creative working methods with Mike Keogh at Artech where I'm doing my practicum, and it's very interesting for me to see the output of his work and the conditions that he's working under, producing music and sound for games. He really seems to exemplify the sense of working creatively under restrictions which is what I would like to re-create through my portfolio project.

I am currently looking for a way of putting together a creative webpage to accompany each of my songs. I'd like to post some of my visual inspirations as well as the explanations of each project along with the song itself. I have little experience creating web pages, but I would really like to work with something like Dreamweaver to create something similar to what I made for Sonic Design in my first year. I'm still in the process of finging something that works.


First Journal Entry

-Wrote out instructions for Airplane video art piece.
-Decided to start a progress log.
-Played with google page creator to try and get website going… total shit, must find something else. Dreamweaver again?
-Tried setting up blogger account, site is not co-operating... pulling out my hair.
-Played with Tassman synth, really like sound under “organs” called “combo Doors.”
-Made sound more bassy
-softened the hammer sound
-Changed octaves of both tones… etc
-A good/complex sound... has drone and melody to it.
-Might think about adding audio clips… think propeller. (Wavelab for processing)
-Try searching The Freesound Project, or findsounds.com
-Still trying to remember Tassman, Need to figure out
-policy for saving
-Exactly how tassman is working with cubase… keep losing my sound.

Description of Airplane Video Art Project (Song #1)

Create a four minute soundtrack to accompany this video art piece which is to be shown in the National Gallery of Canada and projected on a wall in its own separate alcove. The piece should include musical excerpts and be suited to stereo headphones which will be located at the entrance to the alcove below the projector and connected to an airline seat. This seat will be placed parallel to the projected image forcing the seated viewer to look to their left as if through the window of an airplane (see diagram).

The piece entitled “Air Infatuation,” deals with the sense of longing which is felt when staring out of an airplane window down towards the expanse of earth and nature below. The work is meant to be a solitary/peaceful experience and the accompanying music ought to evoke a sense of contemplation directed towards the scene while also not overpowering the viewers’ attention of the video art.

The visual elements of the work include a projected image of an airplane window through which can be seen a moving propeller and mountainous coastal landscape. The footage is to be shot between the city of Vancouver B.C. and the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Guaii) where an interesting mixture of land and sea can be viewed from above.

Air Infatuation is currently under construction, but it is essential to develop a working soundtrack in advance in order to gain a sense of the emotive qualities which the music offers so that the images can be matched accordingly. It is expected that the work will include four continuous minutes of footage which can be seamlessly looped and it is expected that the music will also have this capability.

Preliminary Set of Rules/Ideas Describing My Portfolio Collection

Goal: I will be exploring the creative process by looking at a specific working method which involves creatively designing audio works within a strict set of pre-determined guidelines. I wish to explore the process of working on pieces of music and sound from a starting place which includes rigid guidelines from which I can elaborate and expand upon creatively while also keeping within the bounds of the original requirements. This in some form seems like the working method that I might be using in the work world and I thought that it might be useful and interesting to attempt this process within the project of putting together a collection of my own creative works.

Process: I plan on putting together a collection of around 13 audio pieces of varying lengths which will all spring from previously outlined and detailed narratives describing the scenario for which the sound is to be created. I plan on allotting around two weeks for the completion of each work, but this timeline will likely vary depending on the demands of the piece. I will be working in my home studio with both acoustic and midi instruments and may also seek out the PC studio’s at school if I find that an idea cannot be fulfilled at home.

Template: The idea for this project came from work that I did this summer in Burnaby BC for the Japanese Canadian National Museum for an exhibit entitled “Sea, Stealth and Suzuko, Suian Maru Centennial Exhibition.” I was asked to complete an atmospheric sound work that would play in the museum space to accompany this historical exhibit and I thought that I could use this project as a starting place from which to begin coming up with similar (but imaginary) projects for which to create sound. I will outline the guidelines of the “Sea, Stealth and Suzuko” project below to provide a sense of how I will be describing the imaginary projects which I will be working from for my collection of works.

Create a soundscape which involves two key elements of the Jinsaburo Oikawa story that help to enhance the atmosphere of this exhibit that describes the settlement of a group of Japanese immigrants on two islands on the Fraser River. It will be important to include the sounds of the river which surround the islands as well as the sounds of settlement which include the clearing of Oikawa-jima and Sato-jima (the two islands where the colony was built). This piece will be used as a means for enhancing the experience of viewing the Oikawa family artifacts and reading about the story of the voyage of the Suian Maru, which is the ship that brought the Japanese immigrants to Canada. It is important that this work be thought of as a supplement to the artifacts in the exhibit and that it enhance the mood of the story.

Ideas: I am still in the process of formulating ideas for projects which I will work from but I am thinking of writing sound/music for:

• A segment of a television travel documentary which includes shots taken through the window of a bus as it travels from the flatness of the prairies into the Rocky Mountains towards Banff.

• A four minute video art piece which runs in a loop and includes images of a propeller taken from the window of an airplane flying over the coastline from Vancouver to the Queen Charlotte Islands.
• The background of the Beluga whale show at the Vancouver Aquarium during the storytelling section where children are asked to close their eyes and imagine the arctic.
• Some sort of museum exhibit which involves short pieces of music for various areas of the space.
• A scene from a film which has not yet been imagined.
• Something new to be played from the loudspeakers outside of the Rideau Centre.

The ideas are still flowing, but I would very much appreciate any suggestions of spaces, places, art works, etc. that I could write music or sound for.

Extras: I have also been thinking of putting together a visual companion to accompany my finished collection of works which will include the guidelines for the work and also any photographs or other visuals that have been used for inspiration.